If Helen had wandered very far from the house, it would have been a difficult matter to have found her; but a sort of instinct guided me to where she was. I thought of the spot, I believe, which I myself would have chosen for lonely musing--a spot where a bower of high trees arched over a little cascade of about ten feet in height, whose waters, after escaping from the clear pool into which they fell, rushed quickly down the slanting ravine before them, nourishing the roots of innumerable shrubs, and trees, and flowers, and spreading a soft murmur and a cool freshness wherever they turned. Helen was sitting on the bank over which the stream fell; and though she held in her hand some piece of female work, which, while my mother slept, she had brought out to occupy herself in the park, yet her eyes were fixed upon the rushing waters of the fall. At that moment, catching a stray sunbeam that found its way through the trees, the cascade had decorated itself with a fluttering iris, which, varied with a thousand hues, waved over the cataract like those changeful hopes of life, which, hanging bright and beautiful over all the precipices of human existence, still waver and change to suit every wind that blows along the course of time. My footstep was upon the greensward, so that Helen heard it not; and she continued to sit with her full dark eyes fixed upon the waterfall, her soft downy cheek resting upon the slender, graceful hand, which might have formed a model for the statuary or the painter, and her whole figure leaning forward with that untaught elegance of form and position, which never but once _did_ painter or statuary succeed in representing. When she did hear me she looked up; but there was no longer the quick start to avoid me, as if she feared a moment's unobserved conversation. Her cheek, it is true, turned a shade redder, and I could see that she was somewhat agitated; but still those dear, tender eyes turned upon me; and a smile, that owned she was happy in my presence, broke from her heart itself, and found its way to her lips. "Dear, dear Helen," said I, seating myself beside her, "thank you for the promise that you would not avoid me, and thank you for its fulfilment; and thank you for that look, and thank you for that smile. Oh, Helen! you know not how like a monarch you are, in having the power, by a word, or a glance, or a tone, to confer happiness, and to raise from misery and doubt, to hope, and life, and delight."